| 13.10.2008 |
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| How should the next president deal with Russia and Iran? We have written about the limited options the next administration has for tackling what are generally considered to be the biggest foreign policy challenges facing Barack Obama or John McCain. Now an editorial by Vali Nasr in the Wall Street Journal proposes a novel thesis that could be summed up like this: The U.S. should engage with Iran to confront Russia. According to Nasr, "Washington cannot resist a Russian sphere of influence stretching from the Black Sea to Aral Mountains unless it plays the Iran card to its advantage." In order to do that the U.S. would have to change its position on these issues, writes Nasr: - Drop objection to the flow of Iranian gas to Europe - Engage Iran in talks on security and stability in the Caucasus region - Accept building the planned new pipelines on the back of Iranian gas - "Freeing Europe of Russia's clutches" is more important than "punishing Iran for its nuclear program" Russia's military action in Georgia has altered the way Iranians view the country. As a consequence, says Nasr, Tehran is ready to talk to the U.S. about how to act jointly vis-à-vis a resurgent Russia. Thus, for Nasr, the decision is clear: "Talking to Iran is good Russia policy" because "only by engaging Iran will America draw a wedge between Moscow and Tehran and weaken Russia's hand." Let's assume Nasr's ultra-realist strategy, which sounds like a new version of the old saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," works out and helps contain Russia. That still doesn't answer the question about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. What's more, Nasr's dichotomy "Freeing Europe from the clutches of Russia" versus "Punishing Iran for its nuclear program" in itself is debatable. First, so far the common goal of the U.S. and the EU wasn't to punish Iran for its nuclear program, but to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which is an important distinction. Second, whether Europe is really in the clutches of Russia is still a point of discussion. And third, whether containing a resurgent Russia has a higher priority than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is equally questionable. So what do you think? Is it a sound strategy for the next president to play off Iran versus Russia? |
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| 6 Comments |
| Firstly, we need to acknowledge that Russia does not want Iran to possess a nuclear arm, even if they enjoy running interference on the issue. I don't think this can be understood without taking a look at what Iran wants to accomplish, and how the Russians are in many ways in competition with these interests. If you followed the development of the Bushrer nuclear facility, we can see that this warm friendship can go cold pretty quickly. Why shouldn't Washington attempt to develop better relations with Iran by engaging? Forget about "rescuing Europe" for a moment and just consider that Tehran and the United States are in many ways natural allies. I think it is a brave, intelligent, and unpopular argument to engage with Iran. |
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| James | Homepage | E-Mail | 14.10.2008, 20:47 | ||
| The Nasr thesis is laughable, a sophomoric disinformatizia ploy that attempts to drive a wedge between Russia and Iran. | ||
| hotpolitics | Homepage | E-Mail | 14.10.2008, 12:44 | ||
| This position by Nasr is utterly ridiculous. Firstly, Iran doesn't give a damn about America's objections to the flow of Iranian gas to Europe. If the Europeans need gas and Iran is prepared to sell it to them, then the USA will be ignored anyway. As far as engaging Iran in talks, Iran has offered to do so many times and the USA has rebuffed it. Now Iran is the one that needs to be courted by the Americans, except the Iranians don't like the Americans at all and may simply refuse to bend to any American propositions. As for the USA accepting building the planned new pipelines on the back of Iranian gas, again, whether the Americans accept this or not is immaterial. It's strictly a matter between the Iranians and Europeans and if they want the gas, they wll build the pipeline, no matter what the Americans have to say about it. The line about "Freeing Europe of Russia's clutches" is garbage. Russia has no designs on Europe - what the problem for the USA is if Russia starts flooding Europe with oil and demanding payment in Euro, breaking the cosy petrodollar scam. Then the Europeans can dump the US dollar because they won't need it to buy oil via NYMEX and IPE and the American economy will go into freefall. That's what the Americans are worried about, because if this happens and the Iranians keep selling their oil for Euro too, the US dollar will lose its reserve currency status and the Americans might actually be forced to pay for oil in real valuta, rather than just printing up their Monopoly money and getting oil by forcing the rest of the world to take their debt. It's all too late for the Americans - they had many chances to be the paternalistic superpower and they blew it with their stupid and belligerent foreign policy. Now they are facing the abyss. | ||
| Ziggy | E-Mail | 14.10.2008, 07:53 | ||
| This is a chess game and here's one of the reasons Russia will win: Russia plays chess close its chest. It doesn't reveal it's grand strategy in the press, for example. |
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| colleen | Homepage | E-Mail | 13.10.2008, 22:09 | ||
| yes it probably is asound strategy - I doubt however the powerful Israeli lobby will be very happy about that though. | ||
| matt | Homepage | E-Mail | 13.10.2008, 20:58 | ||
| I don't think that "containing" Russia will produce any good results. Remember Nazi Germany? We will just push Russia to extreme path that no one in normal mind would like. Russia is not attacking anyone militarily (don't count Georgia. They asked for it by ignoring everybody else advises and warnings). Russia is trying to find it's new powers economically. So, may be, we should compete in civilized ways instead of choosing a path of confrontation. Regarding Iran. We get some US politicians saying that Iran is looking to build a nuclear bombs, but at the same time we get independent reviews from UN and US organizations contradicting these claims. What if all this Iran bomb story is nothing more than propaganda? Let's finish research first, and keep all politicians out until we get some real facts.We had enough lies with Iraq. |
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| US Reader | Homepage | E-Mail | 13.10.2008, 20:17 | ||